[quote=@DarkwolfX37] I'm not saying that he didn't, just that there's only one real source that he did in any way even similar to the stories, ie being a religious teacher and not just some random guy who was sympathetic enough in the public to be made into the main focus after the fact. That's just false. Several of the apostles don't even have evidence that they wrote anything. The major ones in the bible do, I'm pretty sure Luke, John, and two other of the major ones actually have more evidence of existing than yeshua did, but a couple really don't. You're misunderstanding my point. I'm not saying that the canon isn't well established. You're right that around 50-70 books are incredibly common, but several of them as well as several that you wouldn't consider canon, the Apacrypha being a good example yes, are considered canon to a good number of sects. Then there's the "non-biblical" books, the ones considered canon by a sect even though they aren't printed as a part of the bible as a book. You also say "early church" but I don't think you're referring to that correctly. The "common" books were compiled together and given canon status relatively recently, and there were at least two major events since then that have notably changed things. Keep in mind that a huge chunk of christians use the KJV, and it was specifically re-translated, altered, and in some spots recompiled in order to be better sounding and easier to sell to people. Your thought that somehow all christians have this same pool they use just isn't right. Much of it is the same across all sects, you'd be hard pressed to find a christian who doesn't consider John to be canon, at least for the most part. But even with the common books, interpretations, and therefor what the canon is for all intents and purposes, varies WIDELY. If you want to talk specifically about the physical books in terms of canon, yes, you are about 90% correct. There are about 60ish books that will show up almost every time. If you want to talk about what they [i]follow[/i] as canon, which is generally what I refer to, then there's a wide bell-curve to keep in mind. [/quote] I'm not arguing that we know who wrote every book. It's only really relevant in the four gospels, and we do know who wrote those as you mentioned. I'm not saying that all of them wrote something either. We have evidence of authorship in "the major ones in the Bible," and the ones in the Bible are the only ones in referring to. It seems as though you think I'm referring to external authors. Now we're getting somewhere. I'll argue that the breadth of disputed books is much narrower than 20 books—it's closer to a cap of 5 with some fringe sects believing otherwise. The main 66 are well established and widely adopted, and the significance of the disputed books is minimal. If we're going to talk about [i]translation[/i], however, I totally agree that KJV is not an authoritative source of accuracy. I do believe that you are overstating the significance of the disparacies between that version and the original, but keep in mind that this was the first translation of the Latin scripture into English, so the process wasn't exactly as ideal as it is now. But when compared to ESV (widely regarded as one of the most accurate translations), there aren't particularly any theological differences. Fortunately, we have access to extremely early texts and thousands of samples to determine that the original writings were not corrupted over time. You seem to be referring to what many believers read as "Bible books," even if they're not part of the actual scripture (which is what your statement regarding what they follow as canon seems to get across). Correct me if I'm wrong in this, but the difference is that I'm not exactly interested in sources the layman will follow outside of the main biblical text because those aren't sources of the main theology. Finally, when I refer to the "early Church," I mean before the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire or even the Catholic Church itself. At this time, believers were referred to as followers of "The Way" until they were initially called Christians at Antioch. Even before the Council of Nicaea, these early Christians had already established amongst themselves what would be considered literary canon (save discussions on books like James and Revelation, as previously mentioned).